"Cell Phones for Soldiers" was featured at the Port Angeles, WA ULHRA event. Started by two teenagers, the program collects used and outdated cell phones and recycles them to earn pre-paid calling cards that are donated to military members overseas.

Kayleigh Perkins, 19 years old, has won the Unlimited Lights driver championship for 2007 after a second place finish in the finals at Port Angeles, WA. Her boat, the UL-72 Victoria Express presents Miss Boat Electric won the team championship.

It was Kayleigh first season driving in the unlimited lights ranks and even more amazing since she was splitting the driving duties in the UL-72 and did not race in two events this season.

U-6's Charlie Grooms to appear on QVC. Long-time team manager of the U-6 Oh Boy! Oberto, Charlie Grooms and his wife Nancy are headed for the big city lights of Philadelphia with their Ladder 51 Flame Broiled Chicken Wings.

The Grooms’ are scheduled to appear on QVC, Monday Oct. 1 at 5:00pm eastern on a special one hour football tailgate show and will be selling their flame broiled wings. “We are scheduled to appear in at least one 15 minute schedule during the hour show,” Charlie Grooms said. “Things are really crazy good right now,” he said.

The Ladder 51 Flame Broiled Wings will be show cased in packages that include 6 pounds of wings (3- 2 lb bags) fully cooked ready-to-heat and serve. They also come with six spicy BBQ sauce packets, but as many on the hydroplane circuit have tasted, they are also great with no sauce at all.

Thanks Owen Blauman for the info

Here's a link to the "wings" page on QVC and a description of Charlie's product:

"Excite your taste buds with these all-natural jumbo chicken wings. Each is fully cooked and flame-broiled so they're ready to heat and eat for dinner, the big game, or a late-night snack. The spicy sauce adds a lip-smacking kick. From Ladder 51. Excite your taste buds with these all-natural jumbo chicken wings. Each is fully cooked and flame-broiled so they're ready to heat and eat for dinner, the big game, or a late-night snack. The spicy sauce adds a lip-smacking kick. From Ladder 51. "

Erick Ellstrom said in his website's forum that they will be doing some pre-season testing on new design concepts to incorporate into a new hull in the future. He said a new hull is set for the U-1 Elam team for 2010 "depending on the power plant."

UPDATE on the UL race. Greg Hopp may or may not race. He's still fighting a rib injury. If he can't go, Jerry Hopp will drive the UL-1. The team could still wrap up a national championship (5 in a row?), but Greg would almost certainly not win the driver championship if he can't race.

Kayleigh Perkins would be in the driver's seat for the drivers title - she's #2 now and just 222 points back from Greg. But she would have to hold off Vince Xaudaro. Vince is only 109 points behind Kayleigh despite smashing up his boat and having a broken tailbone, thereby missing races.

The Gregory family, David Bryant, and the whole USA Racing Partners team would like to thank all of our long-time fans, the new fans that have come on board this season, our sponsors, and media for your support this past season. Each of you has made this a very special year for us at USA Racing Parnters and we look forward to seeing you next season.

All the video from San Diego (1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3B, Provisional & Final) have been re-ingested and posted at HydroInsider.com. They should stream better than before as we've moved them to a serve with better capacity. Again, thanks to Jack Lowe for the video.

The new issue of Extreme Boats magazine has an article on Evanville and Madison. It describes an incident when J. Michael Kelly and Steve David "came together" in Heat 1B, damaging both the U-6 and U-13.

As the story goes, Larry Hanson paid a visit to the U-13 camp. "Curt Tavenner pushed me and things got a bit ugly," Hanson is quoted in the article. Tavenner was quoted saying: "He, (Hanson) came over to our pit area and wanted a piece of our driver... I invited him to leave."Extreme Boats magazine >>

Bill Moore went diving again after San Diego looking for a prop the U-37 Beacon Plumbing team lost. "We lost a prop in heat 3 and I stayed after San Diego and the team rented a boat and I made 3 dives looking for it on Tuesday. The visibility was ZERO. Just had to feel my way around my search patterns. No luck this time," said Moore.Thanks, Kirk Duncan for the info!

Great news for the Water Follies, the non-profit that puts on the Tri-Cities, WA race site:

While we don't have final numbers at this time, we are pleased to announce that our income exceeded budget and our expenses appear to be under budget, so we will hopefully go into 2008 in the black which has not occurred in the past 4 years.

U-6 Oh Boy! Oberto ran the final SD race with an experimental prop and they saved the engine that won at Seafair for the final. Also, Steve David employed a new strategy in the score-up before the start.

Jeff Bernard in the U-5 FormulaBoats.com and Steve David in the U-6 Oh Boy! Oberto actually bumped in the final, but managed to avoid serious damage or trouble. You can see just how close they were in the final race.

Dave Villwock (U-16) said his compressor was stalling and he was worried about blowing the engine, so he returned to the dock.

Jeff Bernard (U-5) and Steve David (U-6) actually bumped on lap four when both boats hit rollers. Both drivers said it was accidental. "Jeff Bernard is a new breed; he drove his heart out," said David.

David Bryant (U-10) went dead in the water, most likely due to saltwater getting into the engine. It's happened before with that hull on the left side. Owner Kim Gregory said they'll fix that before next year's race.

Unlimited Lights at San Diego: All three leaders in the driver point championship were not racing. Greg Hopp was out with an injury. Keyliegh Perkins gave up her seat to Patrick Haworth. Vince Xauduro is out with a demolished boat.

Jerry Hopp in the U-1 filled in for Greg and won the San Diego race with Patrick Haworth in the UL-72 taking second. Paul Becker & UL-14 was third and UL-83 & Wil Muncey was fourth.

Ellstrom crew spent most of the night making emergency repairs to the U-16 Elam Plus after prop blades did extensive damage to the boat on Saturday. The crew did its usual masterful job and got the boat back on the water Sunday, looking just fine.

Inside scoop on just how close the SD race came to folding from reporter Bill Center at the San Diego Union Tribune:

“Three weeks ago, we were done,” said Thomas, the race director and chairman of the Board of Governors of the sponsoring Thunderboats Unlimited organization. There wasn't going to be a race. And if there wasn't a race this year, there wasn't ever going to be a race again.

Kayleigh and Brian Perkins pose on dock after Kayleigh's testing run Friday in Unlimited Light UL-72. Both will on the shoreline Sunday as Patrick Haworth drives UL-72 and Perkins' weekend in unlimited hydroplane U-21 ended Saturday with a broken gearbox.

The trouble with the U-21 on Saturday was a gear box. Don't know if the same issue that's nagged them at the last couple of races. In the Tri-Cities, it was smoking constantly and they had to limit water time to avoid overheating it. It forced the team to withdraw from 1B Saturday at SD, but should be OK for Sunday.

U-16 spun a turbine and snapped a blade on the prop which chewed up the boat in heat 1A. Announcer Steve Montgomery said it blew through the cowling in two locations on the cowling and the bottom of the boat. The crew will work to patch it up, and put in a new engine, overnight and expects to be fine.

Greg Hopp's not driving an unlimited this weekend. The U-100 Mirageboats.com team opted out of San Diego. Hopp usually does double duty at race sites driving Unlimiteds and Unlimited lights.

But Greg got banged up in a water sports accident and has decided to give some of the UL-1 Festool Supply.com presents Graham Trucking GT/Happy Go Lucky seat time to Jerry Hopp. Could hurt Greg in the driver points - he's only several hundreds points ahead of Kayleigh Perkins, who shares seat time in the UL-72 Miss Boat Electric.

Not sure who will be racing the UL-72. Kayleigh took one of the qualifying runs today. Driver Patrick Haworth took two. Haworth ran the boat in Valleyfield. Kayleigh's driven it the rest of time, including a win at Silverdale, WA.

The U-16 Elam Plus team said it's going to be testing some equipment here for the 2008 season during timing runs.

U-6 Oh Boy! Oberto drive Steve David said they've got new equipment they want to put in place for the 2008 season as well. "We're going to be even better next year," he said.

Still, nobody's looking past San Diego. Villwock said the problems they had in Seattle are behind them and they are ready to run at peak performance in San Diego. The boat just didn't seem to have the blazing speed its had all season at Seafair. "We had everything worked out before the final in Seattle," Villwock said.

Here's a piece of artwork for our website that doesn't look quite right to me. Can anybody fill me in - what's this boat in the graphic and is there a story behind it? I'm sure there is. EMAIL: paul.dughi@kndu.com

Steve David, talking about racing at the different venues throughout the season. "Every race course changes, you can see it (in Seattle)... skilled veterans had some problems. Unlike a race car, the water’s always different... the air temperature, air density, the waves, every lap is different."

"It’s the equivalent of running the Indy 500 with speed bumps and they move them every lap."

Another race to watch in San Diego is what happens in the unlimited lights ranks. Kayleigh Perkins and Greg Hopp will go head-to-head again at San Diego with just 22 points separating the race teams at the top of the team high points standings.

With just two races left for the season, Greg Hopp's UL-1 Festool Supply.com - Graham Trucking G.T. - Happy Go Lucky has won three races to date and has 5549 points for the season. The UL-72 Miss Boat Electric has two wins, one by Kayleigh Perkins. They've got 5527 points.

U-10 USA Racing Partners drive David Bryant was busy during the break between Seattle and San Diego. He won the APBA National Championship in both the pro-stock and super-stock classes in Long Beach, CA.

Click here for photo of David flipping his flat-bottom boat in Long Beach >>

Some good natured teasing on the ABRA conference call today, U-37 Beacon Plumbing driver Jean Theoret was talking about driving on the saltwater of San Diego, which can cause problems if it gets into the engine cowling. "You have to be cleaner as far as racing, try not to cut anybody off or let anybody cut you off."

Theoret, of course, did just that to Villwock in the finals at Seattle. A slow start put water up on the canopy. "Lost the vision, lost the course, cut off Dave," said Theoret. Villwock's boat got washed down and his engine stalled. Theoret was DSQ'd. Villwock took fourth after getting the engine re-started.

With the SD race site not paying the fee for unlimiteds to run there, the U3, U100, U1 & U5 had originally said they'd stay away. Ted Porter at Formula Boats decided to race the U1 & U5 FormulaBoats.com. Now, there's some buzz that Fred Leland will reverse his decision and run the U100 MirageBoats.com.

As several people said to me, Fred's said he wasn't going to show up before... then shown up. I suppose we'll know when the boats are in the pits.

If you see the boat on the road or hear anything else, please email me. Thanks!

A quick congratulations to Walt Ottenad. Four of his photos were winners in the photojournalism category at the 2007 Puyallup Fair Washington State Photographers Competition - two of the photos featured hydros.

Walt and Lisa Courneya (another terrific photographer) from NW Speed Shots worked out of the KNDU-TV RV in the Tri-Cities and we were honored to post a number of videos up on HydroInsider.com and use them on KNDU-TV's hydro broadcast. He's developed in an incredibly creative approach to on-board cameras which are a real break-through.

How are we doing the live streaming audio from San Diego to your computer? Easy.

Signal goes from the PA to Steve Montgomery's laptop... to the internet on a phone line we installed in SD. Then it goes to a server in Richland, WA. Then over to our TV station in Kennewick, WA. Through our system, then out to a server farm in NYC. Then to your computer.

If the signal had to travel a straight line the whole route... and then you were listening in Evansville, Indiana... the signal would have gone 3,984 miles to get to your home. What can possibly go wrong?!?

ABRA has released the official boat lineup for San Diego. As we've been reporting, two teams will not attend (U-3 & U-100). 10 other boats will attend.

ABRA: A fleet of 10 boats will be ready to qualify this Friday morning on Mission Bay for this weekend's San Diego Thunderboat Regatta ABRA Unlimited Hydroplane season finale scheduled to run September 14 thru 16.

Kari Gregory, daughter of Debbie and Kim Gregory, USA Racing Partners, has literally grown up at race sites and has worked as a member of the U-10 team. She's now a senior in college at the University of Hawaii. Time sure passes. It seems like just yesterday Mom was in the Tri-Cities telling a couple of guys to take it easy. "She's only 14," she told them.